Dove: Empowering Women

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I chose Dove as my case study as the campaign has been truly impactful from a business perspective and at a deeper, more emotional level, for the consumer.

Many of you will be familiar with the Dove range which amazingly is now in its sixteenth year

Its target market is female and the range covers all sorts of skin and hair products. Dove had enjoyed steady sales up to 2004, but it’s a very ambitious brand and competition was fierce. Furthermore, they are launching a new range of firming products.

Dove took a textbook marketing approach, starting with research to really identify audience needs. The research focused on the topic of beauty from a personal, societal and cultural perspective. The findings indicated that women needed a morale boost, and sadly particularly in the UK.

This research really acted as a springboard for their new campaign. From the research, Dove decided to launch a new advertising approach which was underpinned by the strapline ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’.

The above-the-line approach was supported by some very strong PR and sales promotional techniques, which I’m sure many of you will have seen. It was very prominent on the Tube, I remember.

And last, but of course in no way least, the online component. A new website was launched using this strap-line as the URL.

From the research, Unilever identified two main segments: mothers and teenagers, as well as sub-segments such as youth workers.

The site has proved to be very, very popular internationally and the UK alone has experienced over 1million visits. It’s a very interesting, multilayered site. I had to actually hold myself back a bit. I was diving in there and couldn’t stop looking at all the many things you can do there. So I would recommend, if you haven’t already gone to the site, to look at it.

There’s a wealth of information and interactivity. You can donate or even volunteer to the Dove Fund, which aims to fund projects to boost the self esteem of young women. It was very much more than a regular ad campaign. As an antidote to the celebrity culture, the marketing material featured Asda staff. The featured staff had been chosen by shoppers, and you can read the voters’ supporting statements online.

One of my favourite areas is the teenage zone, which has a different look and feel to the rest of the site. One of the particularly interesting topics is ‘Deciphering Your Mum’, which is valuable, I can assure you, at any age.

For those seeking more cerebral stimulation there is the option to take part in surveys and guess international perceptions of beauty. This screen-shot [slide displayed] shows how China bucks the trend on some perceptions – unlike Western women, their Chinese counterparts feel they have empowering, broader definitions for what beauty means to them.

This way of conveying information is very powerful, and shows women that beauty is not a set concept, but is very much a construct of the society you live in.

I used to work in the fundraising sector and I personally found the fundraising area of the website very involving. This part of the website has a very even emotional and rational split. This page in the fundraising zone makes good use of dynamic content – it imaginatively shows how many lives have benefited from the donations made to the fund. The fundraising aspect has been well researched and given credibility and reach by the impressive number of leading experts from diverse backgrounds and experience – from international athletes, businesswomen and leading community and healthcare professionals.

The site also has some excellent rich media including a selection of short films, many of which have been spoofed. This is their very latest [displays slide]. It’s pretty powerful stuff.

The reach of the campaign has extended way beyond the confines of the site itself. This statement came from a man defending the Dove advertising campaign to two women who had made negative comments about it on Yahoo Answers.

To conclude, the results speak for themselves. Unilever funded a very well constructed website and it paid off at many different levels. What surprised me was that there was no product placement anywhere on the site. Sure, the branding was there, but at no point did they say ‘hey, Dove will change your life’. It operated at a more subliminal and deeper level.

What can we learn from the Dove case study?

Brand equity will always be important, especially as many sectors have little product differentiation. Dove has illustrated how you can gain standout by a detailed understanding of your consumer base.

In terms of your brands, you may wish to revise your online strategy to see what opportunities there are to take customers beyond product features and benefits. Websites, as we have seen, can be a great way to motivate consumers first via their hearts that then in turn can lead to their pockets.

There may well be clues locked away in your existing research or metrics that will help you identify next steps. You may wish to have a more experiential or surprising element to your website or you may want to build a stand-alone site, such as the Dove one.

You may also want to look at what content and activity is on your website for your audience segments – are there some sectors that could be better catered for?

And do make sure you give visitors strong reasons to provide their contact details so you know who is coming to your new improved, sticky site.

Making these sorts of customer-focused changes could really drive new traffic to your website and keep existing customers happy.

These approaches can prove truly invaluable especially during economic downturn, when your share of voice can be that bit louder, as competitors cut back spend.

I do hope you found this whistle stop tour of Dove useful.

Thank you.